


Five Ways Trash Robot Didn't Become a Real Boy, and One Way He Did

by melodiousb



Series: The Continuing Adventures of Trash Robot [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe, M/M, New York Rangers, Robot/Human Relationships, Robots, Temporary Character Death, Wishes, yes i've added magic to this already extremely handwave-y sci fi universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 02:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodiousb/pseuds/melodiousb
Summary: Chris has looked at a lot of stars, and made a lot of wishes.





	Five Ways Trash Robot Didn't Become a Real Boy, and One Way He Did

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ras for continuing to be this series' fairy godmother, and to Iggy for giving me the idea that ended up being the key to the whole story.

1\. 

Kevin wakes up in the middle of the night, and doesn’t know why until he realizes someone is in the room with him and Chris. He can hear them breathing. He touches Chris's shoulder to wake him, but Chris doesn't move, and his shoulder feels...different. Soft. And then he realizes that it's Chris that’s breathing. Kevin must be dreaming.

Chris wakes up because Kevin is shaking him, but he barely registers that, because something is very wrong. He can feel his whole body. His eyelids are sticky when he tries to open his eyes, and something strange is happening in his mouth. He tries to run diagnostics but he can't. None of his commands will work. "What—" he says, and stops, because something is moving inside his neck.

"Chris," says Kevin. "Chris, you're breathing."

"I'm—" says Chris, and feels the thing in his neck move again. "Oh."

He relaxes a little, because he understands now: his wish came true. But relaxing doesn’t help. There's still so much going on. Everything feels like something, and he can't shut any of it it off. And he wanted this. He wished to be human so he could feel things, but it's a lot. He didn't realize it would be this much. And it's never going to stop.

The more he thinks about that, the more he feels, and the more overwhelming that is. He starts to cry.

Kevin puts his arms around Chris and makes the kinds of soothing noises Chris has heard him use on his niece when she's upset. He's holding Chris so tight that it’s kind of uncomfortable, but Chris doesn’t want him to let go. 

"I'm human now," he says, when he stops crying and breathing is going smoothly again. 

"Yeah," says Kevin. “Is that—do you— _how_?”

"I wished," says Chris. "On a star." 

"Oh," says Kevin. "This is good, then." It sounds almost, but not quite, like a question.

Chris thought he knew how to interpret the tones of Kevin's voice, but there's a lot more going on now. Chris knew humans could smell more than him, and taste—oh. that’s what’s happening with his mouth, probably.—but he didn’t know hearing would be so different.

”It will be," says Chris. "Once I get used to it. But. Is it always...so much?" 

"I guess," says Kevin. "I'm used to it. I don't know."

Chris feels like he might start to cry again. 

"Hey," says Kevin. He kisses Chris's forehead. "Sleep. We'll figure stuff out tomorrow."

"How do I sleep?" Chris asks, after he tries going into standby mode and nothing happens.

"Close your eyes," says Kevin. "Focus on breathing. It'll happen."

 

2\. 

Chris wakes up alone, in an unfamiliar bedroom. There’s no one to help him understand what's going on. He has to figure it out by himself. He remembers going into standby mode in bed next to Kevin last night, but he has other, hazier memories of the human life he's woken up into. He wanted to be human, but now that he is, he doesn’t know what the point is. Kevin was more important.

He’s been dropped into the middle of a life that isn’t his, but whoever set it up must feel kindly towards him, because he’s about to start a new job, and it’s his old job: babysitting for the Nashes. He’ll have something that’s familiar. He’ll have a chance to see Kevin, too.

The Nashes don't remember him—not consciously, anyway. Chris is pretty sure they shouldn't be so comfortable with him so fast. And the kids like him right away, and seem to expect him to know things that he does know, but shouldn't.

It helps, having familiar people around, even if they don't know they're familiar. So much is new and strange. Chris's false memories tell him how to do human things, like eating and using the bathroom and dressing for the cold. But doing those things, he still feels like he's doing them for the first time. He likes eating. He likes weather. He doesn’t like the ever-present feeling that someone is missing from his life.

The first time he sees Kevin, Chris is bringing the kids home from the park. He gets halfway in the door, sees Kevin, and forgets what he’s doing. He knows he's staring, knows he's not supposed to, but he doesn't stop until Kevin looks at him. Then he looks away without meaning to, and his face heats up, which isn’t a thing it’s done by itself before. He quickly gets the kids inside and gets them set up with their snacks, and tries to pretend he hasn't just seen his favorite person for the first time in a month.

He tries not to look at Kevin at all, but he can't help glancing over sometimes. A couple of times he catches Kevin watching him. Kevin looks like he doesn't quite understand what he's seeing, but he doesn't know Chris. If he did he would say something.

It’s hard for Chris to concentrate, hard for him to keep his mind on the kids. His body keeps doing things without his permission. He feels too hot and then too cold, and his head is sort of light. His heart seems to be beating harder and faster than usual. That worries him. His body is so new, and he doesn't want to do anything to mess it up.

There's a lot of pain involved in being human. Chris has to remember to be careful about pointy objects, and bumping into things, and letting the water in the shower get too hot. Jessica says he’s clumsy.

Thinking about Kevin hurts too. It’s a different kind of hurt, but it’s just as bad as when he banged his toe into the wall. The difference is that Chris doesn’t keep wanting to stub his toes, and his mind keeps thinking about Kevin all by itself.

When he was a robot, Chris's feelings for Kevin felt like the biggest and realest part of him, but his feelings were little things, then. He searched out his feelings, and nurtured them, and treasured them. But now the littlest feeling can overwhelm him without warning. Thinking about Kevin is always overwhelming, and Chris feels like it might be nice, if Kevin was still someone he could have.

He'd missed Kevin when he was a robot and they were apart, but that's another feeling that seems smaller in retrospect. He misses him a lot more now. He’s going through so much now, and experiencing so many new things, and Kevin is the person he wants to share them with. He wants to know how touching Kevin feels, now that touch is so different for him. He wants to know how Kevin tastes, now that he can taste things.

Chris wants Kevin to be his boyfriend again, but he doesn't know how to make that happen. He loves Kevin, but Kevin doesn't even know him now, and all his new feelings are making him shy and unsure. He has a hard enough time acting like he knows how to be a normal human the rest of the time, but when Kevin is around, it’s worse. He forgets what he was thinking about or what he's supposed to be doing. He can't strike a balance between looking too much and looking too little. He knows Kevin notices, and probably Rick and Jess do too.

Kevin's nice about it, but when he smiles at Chris and tries to draw him into conversation, Chris doesn't know how to respond. It's like he has to catch himself by surprise to enjoy Kevin's company instead of overthinking things.

One day he overhears Rick and Kevin talking about him. 

"What did you do to Chris?" Rick asks.

"Do to him?" Kevin asks, but he sounds like he knows what Rick is talking about. Chris doesn't.

"Did you...know him before?" Rick asks. 

"Are you asking if I—No," says Kevin. "I've never met him. Maybe he's just a fan?"

"He's not like this around anyone else."

"I didn't do anything," says Kevin. "I've barely talked to him."

Chris avoids Kevin after that, not because he doesn't want to talk to him but because he doesn't know what will happen when he does. But then Kevin comes over for lunch after practice one day, and doesn’t leave with Rick afterwards. Instead he finds Chris in the kitchen.

"Do you not like me?" he asks. It's not what Chris expects to hear.

"I like you," he says. 

"Then why—" Kevin begins. 

Eye contact is very different as a human. On this occasion, it goes on for much too long. Kevin looks away first. "I don't date men," he says. 

“What?” Chris asks.

“I’m….flattered,” says Kevin. “That you like me, I mean. But.”

Chris feels like the conversation is moving too fast for him. He can’t tell Kevin that’s not what he’s asking for; it is. And he doesn’t know how to ask Kevin to make an exception for him. But he does know that "I don't date men" is Kevin's way of avoiding saying "I'm straight" when he's not. It's Kevin's way of avoiding saying "I'm not interested." And he know Kevin thinks he’s attractive.

He kisses Kevin once, and steps back quickly. Kissing is very different, when you’re a human. He doesn’t know how to think about it and have this conversation at the same time.

“We could go out to dinner,” Chris says, not looking at Kevin. He’s struggling to maintain his equilibrium. “Just once.”

When he looks up, Kevin’s looking like he can’t quite figure Chris out. “ _Do_ I know you from somewhere?”

“I don’t know,” says Chris. “Do you?”

 

3\. 

"I want to dress up for Halloween this year," Chris tells Gracia.

"Didn't you dress up last year?" she asks. She doesn't remember what he went as, but there was definitely a hat.

"Jimmy gave me a plastic mask and Kevin put a tall hat on my head," Chris says.

Gracia giggles. There are times when she's 100% sure Chris has a sense of humor, but most of the time he says the silliest things with the straightest face. 

"It's nothing," she says when he looks at her questioningly. "You should definitely have a real costume this time. What do you want to go as?"

"I don't know," says Chris. "How do you choose?"

"I usually just go for something I think I'll look cute in," says Gracia.

"What will I look cute in?" Chris asks.

"Anything, probably," says Gracia. "Um. When I was a kid I went as stuff I wanted to be when I grew up."

"Like what?"

"Like...a doctor or a nurse, a couple of times?"

Chris smiles suddenly. "And now you are one," he says.

"Yeah," she says, smiling back. This is why her fiancé's teammate's housecleaning robot boyfriend is one of her best friends. Chris always understands. 

"Is there anything you want to be?" she asks.

"A human," says Chris, with zero hesitation.

Ouch, Gracia thinks. But she decides to take his answer at face value. "That could make a good costume," she says. "Subtle, but fun."

"I already look mostly like a human," says Chris.

"That's true," says Gracia. She frowns. "How do humans look different from you, do you think?"

"More hair," says Chris. "Pores."

She smiles. "How about on a larger scale than that?"

"You're messier," says Chris. Gracia makes a face at him.

"Your clothing is more complicated," Chris continues. "You have genitalia."

That startles a laugh out of her. "Okay," she says. "That's a good start. We can get you an outfit, and...maybe put something in your hair so it looks dirty?"

"Will you help me wash it out afterwards?" Chris asks.

"Yeah, of course," says Gracia. "And, um. Oh! Glasses. You'll look hot in glasses."

"I can slouch," Chris volunteers.

"Show me," says Gracia. "Okay, yeah, that's a good slouch." Chris is adorable. She feels like he's her little brother or something. Like Jimmy is for Kevin, only less annoying.

Gracia was worried that Kevin would have other plans for Chris's costume, but none of the increasingly stupid ideas he's coming up with include Chris.

"Did you tell him about your costume?" Gracia asks Chris.

"I told him it was a surprise," says Chris.

"And he let it go?" Gracia asks. Somehow she would have expected him to want to be told everything.

"He likes when I surprise him," says Chris. "He looked really happy about it."

Okay, yeah, Gracia can see that. Kevin thinks everything Chris does is amazing, which means he really trusts him. It’s kind of sweet. She’s not jealous—she knows how much Brady loves her, and if he acted like Kevin it would creep her out—but it’s nice to see someone that transparently adoring.

This might be Gracia’s only chance to dress Chris up as if he were a giant Ken doll, and she’s going to enjoy every bit of it. She drags Chris to a Goodwill and finds him jeans and sneakers and a plaid flannel shirt. She goes through the racks of t-shirts twice, but nothing is exactly right, so she raids Kevin’s room and finds a threadbare BC hockey t-shirt for Chris to wear under the flannel instead. She’s thinking about ordering some Warby Parker frames and sending them back after Halloween, but then she finds a pair of drugstore reading glasses in chunky black plastic. They look perfect on Chris.

“Can you see okay?” she asks. “They’re pretty weak, but…”

“I had to adjust my lenses slightly,” says Chris. “But I can see fine now.”

“Oh,” says Gracia. “Well. That’s great.”

Chris looks at her curiously, but doesn’t ask. “I like them,” he says, looking at his reflection.

On Halloween, Gracia uses makeup to give Chris’s skin a little color. When she finds out how well his skin takes makeup, she tries adding a five o’ clock shadow, but it looks weird and she ends up wiping it off.

Chris looks pretty hot, actually, in a sexless, robot-y kind of way. When Kevin sees him, he looks like he’s thinking the same thing, probably minus the “sexless” part. She doesn’t really know. Chris has told her a lot, but Kevin hasn’t. He keeps looking over at Chris, though. Not like he normally does, but like he has to keep making sure he saw what he thought he saw.

“He looks good, doesn’t he?” Gracia says, sitting down next to Kevin.

“Yeah,” says Kevin. He looks at Chris again and then back at Gracia. “Was this your idea, or his?”

“His,” says Gracia, and watches for his reaction when she adds, “I asked what he wanted to be.”

“And he said he wanted to be a hipster?” asks Kevin, wrinkling his forehead.

Gracia sighs. She should know better after, like, a year of practically living with this moron. She has to spell everything out. “He wants to be human.”

Kevin looks even more confused. It’s not a good look on him. 

“Did you tell him you wanted him to be human?” she asks. She’s gearing up to get really protective.

“No,” Kevin says.

“Do you _wish_ he was human?” she presses. Chris is more suggestible than you’d think.

“No,” Kevin insists. “I don’t—I love him how he is. I don’t wish he was different.”

“Okay,” says Gracia. After a moment she adds, “Good answer.”

“I’m not actually that much of a dick,” says Kevin.

“Sorry,” says Gracia. “I just—I really want him to be happy.”

“And you think I don’t?” says Kevin.

“No,” she says slowly. “But sometimes I worry that you want stuff he can’t give.”

“I don’t,” says Kevin. “I honestly—I don’t even think about what I don’t have. We’re good. Nothing’s…missing.”

“Okay,” says Gracia, and this time she means it. She smiles at him. “Sometimes I think you might be almost good enough for him.”

Kevin laughs. “Me too,” he says.

 

4\. 

Chris holds the door open for the person coming in behind him as he steps into the coffee shop. He’s barely even looked at the guy, and all he’s noticed is that he’s tall, so it’s a surprise when the guy says, “Chris!” like he’s excited— _really_ excited—to see him.

Chris turns around to see who it is, but he doesn’t recognize him. And he would, if he knew him. The guy has a face like a sheep. A very friendly sheep, Chris decides, as the guy comes in for a hug.

“Whoa,” says Chris, and steps back. “Do I—do you know me?”

Sheepface looks at him closely. “You’re Chris,” he says.

“That’s my name,” says Chris. It hits him, then, that maybe Sheepface really knows him. Maybe he was part of Chris’s life before Chris woke up in a hospital bed three years ago with no memory of his past.

“But—you’re human,” says Sheepface.

That wasn’t what Chris expected all. “Yes?” he says. “Last I checked?”

 

5\. 

It's not real to Kevin until Chris starts sending him photos from the agency.

"Is this a dead guy?" he asks, looking dubiously at the picture on his phone.

"They're taking him off life support next week," Chris says blithely. "He's brain dead."

"And you can wake up his brain?" Kevin asks.

They've been over this half a dozen times at least, but he's still hazy on the details.

"No, the brain is synthetic," says Chris. "It's ready for me. We're just waiting on a body."

"And you like this one?" It looks superficially like Chris, if you’re looking for a resemblance. Dark hair, dark eyes, straight nose. Thinner than Chris, from what Kevin can see. He looks at the eyes of the guy in the photo, wondering if they crinkled at the corners when he smiled.

"I don't know," says Chris. "What do you think?"

Kevin feels uncomfortable. "It'll be your body," he says. "If should be your decision."

"I want you to find it attractive, though," says Chris. "That's part of what I'm looking for."

Kevin studies the photo. "He's okay looking, I guess." 

"I want to find one that's more than okay," says Chris.

"I don't need you to be, like, a model or anything," says Kevin. "I want you to have a body you like, and I'll...it's you. I figure I'll like any body you're in." That's what he's hoping, anyway.

Chris doesn’t look satisfied, but all he says is, “I think we’re going to be able to do better than both of us saying, ‘okay, I guess.’ A picture will come and it will be right.”

Kevin thinks it’s funny that, of the two of them, the robot is the one who believes in this fairytale of finding the right almost-dead body and living happily ever after as a human. For Kevin, it’s a lot to swallow. And it’s not that he doesn’t believe in fairy tales. He just thinks they’ve had theirs already, and it’s not fair to ask for two happy endings.

When the next photo arrives and doesn’t appeal to Chris any more than it does to Kevin, he’s relieved. He agreed to this because it’s what Chris wants, and if Chris goes through it—well, it’ll be alright, probably. But all Kevin wants is Chris, and he already has him.

Chris looks at the third photo and says, “I think I can see myself in this one.”

“I don’t like it,” Kevin says immediately.

“Kevin,” says Chris. “You haven’t even looked at it.”

Kevin looks at it. He sees what Chris means; it’s not Chris’s face, but it’s a face Chris could wear. “I don’t like it,” he says again.

"Okay," says Chris. "I'll tell them I don't want it."

That night, Kevin says, "You were right; the photo from today was better than the others. If it's not too late..."

"I passed on it already," says Chris. "Why did you say you didn't like it?"

"I'm scared," Kevin admits. 

"It's still going to be me," says Chris.

"Will it, though?" Kevin asks. "What if—what if being in a human body makes you a different person?" 

"I'll have a backup, in case it goes wrong," says Chris. "But—Kevin, you said it was okay. If it's not okay with you, I won't do it."

"It's your choice," says Kevin. "I don’t want to choose for you. And—" he stops.

"What?"

"I was going to say I'll love you no matter what," says Kevin. "But I guess that's what I'm scared of. That you'll change so much that I won't."

They're both silent for a few moments. Finally Chris says, "If you feel that way, I won't do it."

"But you want to be human," Kevin protests. "This is—I'm being selfish. Don't give up on what you want because I'm scared."

"Okay," says Chris. A few days later Chris mentions that the agency has sent a couple more photos, but he doesn't offer to show Kevin.

 

"Hey," says Keith, during a flight to Canada on their next road trip. "That thing you and Chris were talking about a couple of months ago, with him getting a human body. Is that happening?"

Kevin nods. "He's just...waiting for the right coma patient's family to pull the plug."

"Um," says Keith. "What?"

Kevin explains, or tries to. "And then I kind of told him I didn't want him to do it at all, and now he's not showing me the coma photos," he finishes. "So, I don't know, maybe we're going to get back to Florida and my boyfriend is going to be a completely different person."

"Hey, slow down," says Keith. "I don't know about the rest of it, but he wouldn't do that without telling you."

"Unless he thinks I don't support his choices," says Kevin glumly.

"Even if he thinks you don't support his choices," says Keith. "And you don't."

"I do," says Kevin. "I just don't like them."

"That'll definitely make him feel better."

"Shut up," says Kevin.

 

Chris is still a robot when Kevin gets home. 

"How's the body search going?" Kevin asks.

"I thought you didn't want to hear about it," says Chris.

"I do," says Kevin. "I always want to know what's going on with you."

Chris sits down next to Kevin and leans against him. "I'm scared too," he says.

"Really?" Kevin asks.

"Of course," says Chris. "I don't know what it will be like. Even if it works."

"Why do it, then?" asks Kevin.

"I want feelings," Chris says quietly, almost in a whisper.

Kevin swallows. "You have feelings." 

"Not like you do," Chris says. "I don't know what it's like for you, but it's more. I can tell."

Kevin's feeling kind of a lot of feelings right now, so maybe Chris is right. He tells Chris what he told Keith. "I don't know if I'm going to like this," he says. "But I want you to do what you want. And I'm here for you no matter what."

"I know," says Chris.

After that the photos stop coming. When Kevin asks, Chris says, "I put it on hold."

"I might still do it," says Chris. "But—it's too risky now. No one else has done this. And I don't want to lose what I have."

 

6\. 

Kevin doesn't want to send Chris back to the factory, ever, and Chris doesn't want to go. So when Chris needs a tune-up, a technician visits. 

Kevin stays in the room while the tech makes any necessary repairs. He hates watching Chris be opened up, but Chris is less scared if he knows Kevin will be there the whole time.

A couple of times techs have mentioned that Chris has a lot of non-standard parts, which probably explains a lot. But it means there are things that can't be replaced when they break down. Over the years, some of the super touch-sensitive skin on Chris’s torso stops registering sensation, and eventually his temperature regulator has to be replaced with a less effective one. He still won't overheat, but he can't lower his body temperature the way he used to.

One year the tech who comes out for Chris's check-up says, "Ever thought of replacing him with a newer model? We’ve got a pretty good trade-in deal."

"No!" says Kevin, too loud. He takes a couple of breaths. "I don't need a new one. I just want to keep this one running as long as I can." He wonders how long that will be. It's a question he's avoided even framing up until now.

The technician says, "You've taken good care of him. There aren't that many of this model out there anymore." She opens her mouth to say something else, and then closes it again. 

"What?" Kevin asks.

"I shouldn't be telling you this," she says. "But we won't be supporting this model after this year."

Kevin thanks her for telling him and watches her power Chris on again. He's always kind of scared that what turns on after maintenance or updates won't be Chris. But, like always, Chris looks over at Kevin and smiles reassuringly as soon as he boots up.

After the technician leaves, Kevin locks himself in the bathroom to cry. He splashes his face with cold water afterwards, and he thinks he looks normal, but when he goes back out Chris gives him a funny look.

 

The official announcement that Chris’s manufacturer will be ending support for him comes in December. If anything happens to him now, there will be no one to help them fix it.

“I might be able to transfer my firmware into a newer model,” says Chris. “But...there are things about me that are different.”

“I know,” says Kevin. 

“I always have to skip parts of the updates,” Chris confesses. “I don’t want to lose the parts that are me.”

“I’m scared every time you get an update,” says Kevin. “But—” he swallows. “How long can you last without any updates or new parts?”

“I don’t know,” says Chris. “I think I’ll be okay for a while.”

 

“I guess I knew his body wasn’t going to last forever,” Kevin tells Johnny on the phone. “I mean, he was built to be an appliance. And...computers go out of date pretty fast.”

“I guess,” says Johnny who sounds like he wants to cry almost as much as Kevin does.

“It’s like he’s been diagnosed with a disease,” says Kevin. Chris is okay for now, but they don’t no how much longer he will be. Maybe not long. Kevin thinks about it all the time and tries not to let Chris know.

 

A couple of years later, Kevin starts thinking about retirement. His body just can’t handle the stress like it used to. It’s harder to get in shape and slower to recover from injuries. It sort of feels right that Chris starts to break down at the same time, both of them young-looking and prematurely decrepit. But with Kevin it’s a slow decline, and when Chris starts failing, he goes downhill fast.

He starts crashing, once every couple of weeks at first, and then more often. The first time, Kevin is on a road trip and when he comes back he finds Chris standing unresponsive at the kitchen sink. He freaks out a little before turning him on and finding out that he’s been like that for over a day.

The next time it happens, Kevin is home, and they’re in the middle of a conversation when Chris goes blank and silent. Kevin reboots him and they go on with their day and it’s not until they’re in bed that night that Kevin starts crying. Chris holds him and licks his tears away and kisses his face.

“I can’t—I don’t want you to—be gone,” Kevin manages to get out.

“I know,” says Chris, sounding distressed. “Kevin, I know. But I’m not real.”

“You _are_ ,” says Kevin.

“I mean I don’t get to do this,” Chris says. “I don’t get to live a real person life. I’m a fancy computer and I’ve already had way more than I was meant to.” 

“You’re a fancy computer _and_ a real person,” says Kevin. He sniffles a little. “Don’t you want to keep working?”

“Yes.” Chris is emphatic. “Kevin. I don’t want to die.” Kevin think if Chris could cry he would be doing it right now. “I want more life. I want more time with you.”

“Me too,” says Kevin.

 

After a couple of months, Chris is crashing almost every time Kevin leaves their apartment. They don’t talk about it a lot, but when Kevin is home he spends every minute he can with Chris. When he’s on the road, he spends a lot of time on the phone with his family and friends. It doesn’t do anything for his relationships with his teammates, which already aren’t great.

When the Panthers come to town, Jimmy kicks Kevin out of his own apartment to talk to Chris alone. His eyes are suspiciously red when Kevin gets back. 

“Are you going to have, like, a funeral?” he asks after their game that night.

Kevin shakes his head. “Don’t ask me that, Jim. I don’t know. No, I don’t think so.” Maybe he’ll do something over the summer, if—he hopes he won’t have to. Maybe Chris won’t get worse. Maybe he’ll get better, somehow.

Rick and Jess and their kids come out for a week, and Keith’s already made his one trip to Denver for the season, but Kristyn brings the girls for a couple of days. The kids all seem pretty freaked out. They’ve spent more time with “Uncle Chris,” than Kevin’s real niece has, and none of them have had someone close to them die before. Kevin feels a little less alone, knowing that he’s not the only one who’s going to hurt when Chris is gone.

One morning Kevin wakes up and goes to reboot Chris (he crashes most nights now) and Chris won’t turn on at all. He plugs in the emergency battery. Nothing. He tries again, and again. Then he calls his coach and says he needs a personal day. It’s not a nice call: Kevin doesn’t like the guy, and the feeling is mutual. But Kevin knows how shaky he sounds. He doesn’t expect an argument and he doesn’t get one. 

Then—he doesn’t really remember what happens next. It’s two hours later, and Chris is still just lying there, and Kevin’s chest feels like lead. He wants to hope—but he knows Chris will never turn on again.

He calls his mom and manages to tell her what’s happened, even though as soon as he hears her voice he starts crying. He’s glad she loved Chris, too, and that all their friends did. If he was alone in this he couldn’t deal.

When he gets off the phone with his mom, Kevin doesn't really know what to do. Chris is still lying on the bed, lifeless in a way that makes Kevin think about just how alive he really was. Almost everyone Kevin knows is subject to an NHL schedule. So he calls Rick, who's retired, and closer than most, and cares more about Chris than most, too. Kevin doesn't want to ask Rick to come help, and Rick doesn't make him. He just pauses a few minutes into their conversation and says, "There's a flight that would get me to Denver at three."

"I'll pick you up from the airport," says Kevin.

 

"Where is he?" Rick asks when they get to the apartment.

"The bedroom," says Kevin, and follows Rick inside. 

"It's been a few hours," says Kevin. "I—I think I should try one more time, just in case..."

Rick looks at him. "One more time," he says. "But it has to be the last time. Don't—you can't keep trying. You can't do that to yourself."

"I know," says Kevin, but if Rick wasn't here...he's glad Rick is here.

Rick watches as Kevin tries to start Chris up one last time, and he watches as it doesn't work and as Kevin lies down on the bed next to Chris and tries not to notice how different everything feels.

"Kevin," says Rick. "Come on."

"Yeah," says Kevin, and he lets Rick pull him away and make him coffee and order food. Kevin sits still and tries to think about anything other than Chris being gone, but he feels like there's a giant, gaping hole in him that doesn't leave room for anything else.

"I didn't think it would be this fast," he says. And, "I didn't think about not having him forever."

Rick says, "I know," and all the other things Kevin needs to hear, and then he sits down and says, "Do you want to keep him?"

Kevin thinks about that—Chris's body in a closet, or a box in his parents' basement or something. He thinks about trying to bury him somewhere, and shivers. He shakes his head.

"Good," says Rick. "That's good, but do you—I actually have no idea what we should be doing with him."

"There's something special you're supposed to do with large electronics, right?"

They look it up online, and they can't find guidelines on recycling robots, specifically, but there's a place in Boulder where you can recycle stuff they won't take anywhere else.

Kevin takes a few minutes to sit with Chris by himself. He's not sure what you're supposed to do when you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with and then ten years later it's over. At least he doesn't have to deal with funeral arrangements.

He holds Chris's cold hand and lets himself cry for a few minutes. Then he dries his eyes and calls Rick in to help him wrap Chris up in a sheet and take him down to the car. Halfway through he says, "Hold on a minute," and pries off the small panel at the back of Chris's neck, because he needs something to hold onto. Chris will think—he bites his lip.

"I can't believe he's gone," Kevin says.

Once they get Chris into the backseat, Rick leans up against the car and rests his head on his arm. He looks awful: tired and sad. Kevin wants to help, and he knows he should say something, but all he can feel is loss.

“He was—really good at being a person,” says Kevin, finally.

“Yes,” says Rick. He takes a deep breath. “Ready to go?”

 

The people at the recycling center are nice, but unprepared for a humanoid robot. After a few minutes, Kevin goes back outside and leaves Rick to finish talking to them. He should help, but he can’t talk about Chris like he’s just a piece of equipment.

Kevin’s mom comes out the next day, and sits with Kevin while he goes through Chris’s stuff. She says he doesn’t need to do it right away, but he needs to do something and this feels right. He puts things he wants to keep in a box: the panel he took off of Chris yesterday; Chris’s five Hayes jerseys, one from each NHL team Kevin’s played with and a USA one; His thin wallet, with copies of Kevin’s credit cards and nothing else; the contents of Chris’s bedside table. There’s a lot in there, considering they’ve only been in this apartment for seven or eight months: photos, cards from the Nash and Yandle kids, a pair of glasses Chris got for Halloween one year and kept wearing afterwards. Kevin leaves Chris’s clothes in the dresser because he doesn’t like the empty space, but he lets his mom take the bulk cleaning products somewhere to donate them.

Then Rick and his mom both watch him play a shitty game with his shitty team. Colorado was supposed to be bearable because he had Chris, and now Chris is gone and he’s got nothing.

 

Chris doesn’t dream, but sometimes he boots up and remembers images, things his eyes saw between shutting down and turning on again. He calls them dreams, because he likes to identify a real, human equivalent to the things he experiences.

His first real dream starts the same way, with images of Kevin in their bedroom. That’s normal. Then he sees Rick in the bedroom too, but that can’t be real. Rick was here last month. Then there’s a dark warehouse, and it’s not just an image anymore. He feels that he’s there, and that the roof is opening up so he can see the stars. This is a dream, he thinks. In dreams, roofs can come off buildings you’re not in. He’s having a real dream.

One of the stars twinkles brighter than the rest, and in his dream Chris knows it’s the one you wish on. Maybe it really is, too. Chris should know. He’s looked at a lot of stars, and made a lot of wishes.

As Chris watches the star gets bigger—or, no, it’s coming closer. It takes a long time to touch down in front of him, and by the time it does it’s grown so bright that Chris can’t see the warehouse anymore. If this wasn’t a dream, his image sensors would be melting.

“Hello,” it says. Stars can talk in dreams. He’ll have to tell Kevin about that.

“Hello,” says Chris. He’s programmed to be polite, even to stars, so he adds, “How are you?”

“I am well,” says the star. 

“What is it like, being a star?” Chris asks.

The star pauses before it answers. “It is a great responsibility.” It looms closer. “And you,” it says. “How did you enjoy being a robot?”

“I enjoy it a lot,” says Chris. He wants more—he’s almost always wanted more—but he appreciates what he has. 

“Wait. Did you use the past tense?” Suddenly the past few months come back to him. The constant crashes, the goodbye visits. “Star, am I dead?” He can’t be dead; he’ll miss Kevin too much.

“You can no longer be this robot,” says the star. Chris thinks that means yes.

“If I can’t be a robot anymore, can I be something else?” he asks.

“You were not real and you made yourself real,” says the star. “If you wish to, you may complete the process. Yes, you can be something else.”

“I wish to,” says Chris quickly. “I wish to be human. I wish to be _me_ —but human.”

“Very well,” says the star.

Chris always knew human feelings would be more than what he experienced as a robot. He couldn’t have imagined how much more.

 

All Kevin wants when his contract with the Avs ends is to sign somewhere where he knows people. He hates being alone, hates living alone. When he had Chris, he didn’t have to worry about that, and Chris being gone makes him worry that he’s going to feel alone forever. But it will be better if he’s near friends.

The Rangers aren’t offering him a lot of money, but that’s okay. He had a bad season in Colorado, one that only got worse when Chris died. And New York is the place where he started his career, and where he played the longest. And he has friends there. So he signs the contract and does his best to get in shape, and prove that he was worth signing. He’s not sure that he was. He’s still—things have been pretty rough, since Chris. His head’s not in a great place.

Brady finds him an apartment in his and Gracia’s building. When he takes Kevin to look at it, he’s careful with him in a way that makes Kevin think Jimmy’s been talking to Brady about him.

“Stop acting like I’m about to fall apart,” says Kevin. “I’m dealing, I’m just really fucking sad, okay?”

“Okay,” says Brady.

“I just miss him,” says Kevin, as they head back down to Brady’s apartment for dinner.

“I know,” Brady says. 

Kevin spends the evening talking to Brady and Gracia and playing with their two-year-old daughter. Maybe this is how his life goes now: spending as much time as he can with his friends, watching their kids grow up. Lola was almost this young when the Yandles came to New York, and now she's a teenager and Kevin is back in the same place and the same situation, pretty much. And he loves his friends, and he loves their kids, but he still feels alone.

He knows he's not always going to be as sad as he is right now, but he has a hard time believing that he's going to stop missing Chris, or that he'll ever love someone else as much. It's hard to see himself as anything other than alone, going forward.

 

Kevin moves in and gets settled, does okay in training camp and a handful of preseason games, and feels a little bit better, a little more ready for whatever comes next. He's playing okay, and scoring more often than he expects to.

He's leaving the arena after a game one night in mid-October when he hears someone call his name. He's been ignoring fans and autograph seekers so far, but he turns automatically toward this one, because the voice sounds like Chris's.

Impossibly, it is Chris. 

Kevin freezes. He can't think at first, and when he can he wonders if the people at the recycling place found a way to turn him on again. But—his hair is longer.

Chris comes up to him and says, "Kevin—" and breaks off uncertainly.

"I'm hallucinating you," says Kevin.

Chris shakes his head.

"I don't care if I'm hallucinating you," Kevin decides, and pulls Chris into a hug. He feels real. He feels different. 

Kevin lets go of him. "You're—"

"I'm human now," says Chris. He looks happy and a little bit smug.

"How?" asks Kevin.

"A star did it," says Chris.

"Okay," says Kevin. He's not sure he even cares what that means right now. He hugs Chris again, holds onto him tightly. It's a weird mix of familiar and not.

He hears Brady say, "Kevin?" and then, when Chris turns to look at him, "Oh my god."

Kevin turns, too, and he doesn't know what his face is doing right now, but Brady takes one look at him and says, "Okay, um. Let's get you guys out of here."

In the cab, Kevin holds on tightly to Chris's hand while Brady asks a million questions that Chris doesn't seem to want to answer. Chris's hand in his is the only thing that doesn't feel a little unreal, and he looks as overwhelmed as Kevin feels.

"I made a wish, sort of," says Chris. He's talking to Brady but looking at Kevin. "I can try to explain later, but..."

"Okay," says Brady. "But you'll stop in for a minute and see Gracia, right? Because when I tell her, she's going to come find you anyway."

That makes sense, but Kevin is still a little disappointed when Chris agrees. But then Gracia kind of shrieks and throws herself at Chris, and Kevin just wants to get Chris alone and upstairs so he can start trying to understand what's going on, but...it's nice.

Gracia wants them to come in and sit down and talk about everything, but Chris turns back to Kevin and says, "Maybe tomorrow? But it's late, and we..."

"We'll see you tomorrow," Brady agrees, and then, finally, they're alone.

When they get to Kevin's apartment, they look at each other for a moment and then Chris steps forward and kisses Kevin. "Wow," he says."Kissing is different."

Kevin laughs a little unsteadily. "It's—it's really you." He touches Chris's face, runs his fingers through Chris's hair. "Tell me what happened."

"I went to bed at home," Chris says slowly. "And then I had a dream, only I guess it wasn't a dream." His eyes meet Kevin's. "A star came down from the sky and talked to me," he says. "It felt real. It let me choose what I wanted to be."

Kevin waits for that to make sense, but it doesn’t. "That sounds crazy," says Kevin. "But—you're here."

"I'm here," Chris agrees.

Kevin kisses him, and he's been kissing Chris on a regular basis for most of the past ten years, but it feels new. Chris is _breathing_ , and making little noises on the exhale, and Kevin can't get enough.

Chris's hair is longer than it was when he was new, and it feels good under Kevin's hands. He scratches lightly at Chris's scalp, and Chris sighs. Then Kevin moves his hand down to Chris's neck and feels something strange. "Hey," he says. "Turn around for a minute?"

Chris turns and Kevin pushes his hair away from the nape of his neck. There's a scar there, perfectly square. Chris lifts his hand to touch the back of his neck. "What's that?"

"Come here," says Kevin. He takes Chris into the bedroom and grabs Chris's old access panel from his bedside table. It fits perfectly over the scar, and he takes a picture so that Chris can see.

Chris looks at the photo and turns the panel over in his hands. "It's really me," he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Idea credit, specifically, to Ras for section three and to Iggy for section six.
> 
> I think this is the end of this series, but I don't want to say so for sure. I've learned a lot more about these characters than I've put down here, and at the very least if you want to come talk to me about them on tumblr I will have Things to say. (I'm melodiousb there, too.)


End file.
